Thursday, April 21, 2011

Last night, we had 4 players, excited to play BSG again. The plan was New Caprica.Players were:Matt - AdamaKevin - StarbuckMax - ZarekMe - Caprica Six

I chose a Cylon Leader for a few reasons, but maybe not the best choice in 4p NC.My agenda was comically unattainable: Humans Win and all resources at 3 or less.

Long story short, I tried flooding the board with Civvies but the fleshbags were too efficient. Shortly after Sleeper Phase, I realized that there was no hidden Cylon, which sealed my fate; without a check-spiking buddy, my influence on resources was minimal.

The fleet hopped right on and off New Caprica; Zarek compensated for his weakness with XOs aplenty.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

And I'm saying it again, but more strongly now.I've already posted to the PGWJ list, but I figure it's just as safe to post to the blog.What I'm trying to avoid is causing panic and alarm by posting to our local vtes mailing list.

You want to buy a whole 25000-30000-ish card VTES collection that spans the whole history of the game? Willing to pay shipping (or preferably pick it up)?

Make me an offer or direct any questions about it to me (by private email, please).

The response for the fastest Cylon win on the first player's first turn was equally sane; perhaps even more sane and less convoluted; it could probably happen once in a thousand games.

But pretty insanely, a player figured out how the humans could (hypothetically, purely mechanics-wise) get a Win on the first player's first turn. I'm in awe. It involves the fact that State of Emergency doesn't limit you from playing more State of Emergency on your turn.So, if you manage to shrink the Leadership deck down small enough (with, say, overloading a check and having Adama draw and keep all the green cards), and trigger enough card-draws from it, you can effectively keep drawing and re-playing State of Emergency, getting an effective infinite number of player-actions, including a Cylon on Caprica drawing crises (it requires losing a food, but you can lose a food at 0 and keep going; you just need to gain 1 food back before the loop ends).That's pretty awesome, even though it will never happen in practice.

Very early on in the game, Admiral Tigh got a chance to check out somebody's loyalty. Wisely, he chose Cally. Pegged her as a Cylon, which, as we all know, means that there's a 50/50 shot of either one of them having a shiny red spinal column.

We were not left in suspense for long, because Cally has a fairly straightforward way of resolving that uncertainty.On her next turn, she tapped Tigh on the shoulder, and he departed from this world, showing that he had been Human. Admiral Cain came in to replace Tigh, and soon returned the favor, using her uber-brig ability to flush Cally out of the airlock and into the Resurrection Ship.

That set the tone for the rest of the game.

A lot of location-damaging happened in this game, which led to Pegasus's destruction and the humans' eventual demise, but also it allowed the Cylon players to cycle their Trauma tokens, which was a mechanical (no pun intended) concern from the beginning. No worries at all for them.

As for the rest of the Ally Mechanic, it worked out pretty well.

Two notable moments:We were running low on fuel, and after encountering Boomer in the Armory, Cain drew Seelix (beneficial effect: +1 fuel). So, seeding Seelix with "positive trauma", Cain was able to pick it up later and help us out.

Notable moment #2:Pre-sleeper-phase, President Roslin had to place Aaron Doral on the board, seeding him with negative trauma (Damage Galactica), and strongly advising that we do not go visit him.After the sleeper phase showed Roslin her true Cylon colors, which happened to be the "Reveal and Damage Galactica" card (with Doral's picture on it, of course), she conspired with Doral to blow up Galactica in a really bad way.

The ship was so hurting, the Basestars were firing well, and we were dealing with Centurions at the same time.. we made it to Distance 5 and didn't even have the chance to Blind Jump, before Galactica disintegrated into tiny bits.

Even without seeing the Crossroads Phase happen, I enjoyed the spice and intrigue that the allies added to the game.I'd love to try it again.Maybe next time!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

People don't often suggest new skillcards, because it's really not the kind of game where you can just substitute a card like that in.

But I came up with this simple idea, and felt like sharing it with the peanut gallery.

VIP ShuttlePoliticsValue: High (3/4/5? Maybe even 6?)Movement: Move to a location on another ship. Roll a die. On a 6 or higher, put this card back into your hand. This ability is only usable if you are in a ship location.

Can't be played on New Caprica or while piloting (wording could be better about this), but _can_ be played in the Brig.You won't Strategically Plan the roll (probably), because you might as well just discard the Strategic Planning to move.It needs a high value because the movement ability isn't useful incredibly often.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Last Wednesday, the PGWJ group (Matt, Max, and I) got a chance to try out Mansions of Madness.Pardon me if my details are incomplete, but there are the issues of both "secrecy" and my memory.I'm also typing this entry from the ipad as an experiment, so I'll be brier because the keyboard is less than perfectly comfortable.

Matt played the Keeper role.Max chose the old professor. I played the gangster.

The flavor text and story clues really did seem to add to the game. I liked that.The game was really close; it looked like we investigators had already lost and we were just "playing it out", but we ended up pulling off a victory. I liked that.

I am still conceptually concerned about replay value since there are fixed scenarios, but I don't think I'll personally play the game enough times for it to make a difference.